In
the second half of the nineteenth century, in England and America, Charles
Dickens's novels were published in chapter-by-chapter installments in
periodicals. Dickens's novels were wildly popular, perhaps not on the same
scale that J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is wildly popular, but for
that time the mania was roughly comparable. Without doubt, each installment was
rabidly discussed as it appeared, and speculation ran wild about what would
come next in Dickens's exciting, action-packed and often mysterious stories.
However, these discussions were limited by the technology of the day: you might
discuss your reading within your family and amongst your friends, and sometimes
people wrote in to the periodicals that published the novels to comment on what
they had read. But for the most part one speculated only with people whom one
already knew.

Since
Dickens's time, novels have almost always been published all at once, and so
readers generally wait to discuss a work until they've reached the end. There
are some exceptions; most notably, the unprecedented rise in quality and
popularity of graphic novels in the 1990s presented a situation where readers
were forced to wait breathlessly for a month between installments. One of the
most popular graphic novels of that decade, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, did
indeed engender a rabid and obsessive following of fans, but the internet had
not yet become common enough or sophisticated enough to turn that fandom into
an institution that fed upon itself, and the fandom of Sandman in its
early stages remained relatively small and existed mostly offline.

Of
course, Sandman has continued to grow hugely in popularity, but it is
notable that it really took off only after it was available from start to
finish in bound volumes; the same is true for Philip Pullman's hugely popular His
Dark Materials trilogy. While authors like Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman
have their own official web sites and fan sites with active discussion groups,
neither are anything like as elaborate as the Harry Potter fan site
network. This seems to be because most popular series, like Pullman's and
Gaiman's, don't reach their peak of popularity until after they've been
published in their entirety. The Harry Potter series, by contrast, is
slowly reaching the height of its popularity along with the close of the story,
and all this coincides with a moment in time when the internet has reached into
nearly every home in the industrialized world and technology has made it easier
for fans to create sophisticated, interactive multimedia sites. In short, the
fact that the Harry Potter series is not yet resolved with a final
volume creates an unprecedented fan need for constant news and reference
information at precisely the same time that technology and access make it all
possible on a previously unimaginable scale. (A contrasting case is the Lemony
Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events series, which reached its "End"
just last year. While also wildly popular and associated with both an official
author site and many fan sites, that series relies less on suspense for its
charm than these other popular works; after all, readers of Snicket know
things will go badly, we just enjoy the incomparable style with which Snicket carries
it off.)

Thus,
the situation in which the Harry Potter fandom now finds itself is
unprecedented. The sheer number of readers and fans of these books is of course
staggering, but what is even more unique is that (a) we do not yet know how the
story ends, and (b) we can all communicate with each other in real time, around
the world, with only a few boundaries of language and access to technology to
limit the size of the audience discussing these books.

And
we are discussing. The biggest open questions remaining in this series ’
who will live, who will die, Snape's loyalty, where the Horcruxes are, how
Voldemort can/will be defeated ’ are driving avid discussion in online forums
and chat rooms, on a surprisingly large and varied list of Harry Potter-related
podcasts, and at "real-life" conferences and other events where fans (who did
not otherwise know each other) gather.

In
addition to the large, obvious cliff-hangers that we are left with after
reading the sixth and penultimate book in the series, we also discuss ’ ad
nauseum ’ every hint dropped by the series' author, J.K. Rowling, in
interviews and on her official web site. It is a fascinating and unique fact in
itself that Rowling has dropped hints. As we have seen, perhaps no other author
has been in a position to do so in this way, on this scale, since most series
reach a high level of popularity only after they've been completed (and, of
course, no other series has been this popular at all). If other authors,
however, were in such a position to drop public hints about a plot that was
still in the process of unfolding, they might let it suffice to refuse to quash
specific questions where necessary, without actually adding new possibilities
to the speculation. But Rowling goes further, by voluntarily offering nuggets
of information designed to foster still more debate, such as the fact that
someone will perform magic in book seven who has not done it before, or that it
matters how Dumbledore came into possession of Harry's invisibility cloak
before book one.1

We
all know that there are questions Rowling can't answer, and we wouldn't want
her to, because they would give away the plot of the last remaining book. She
has gone on to say that there are certain lines of speculation that, when they
come to her attention, she feels she needs to quash, because they "are plain
unprofitable." 2 But, she allows other speculation to run wild, arguing
that even if the conclusion is wrong, the line of thought might lead somewhere
interesting.3 Perhaps there is still another reason to keep certain possibilities
open, and even to directly throw out carefully worded red herrings ("I can
completely understand the mentality of an author who thinks ˜well I am going to
kill them off¦' " 4), which Rowling may be invoking unconsciously (or not so
unconsciously).

Normally,
when we read a novel, we are of course in some suspense about how it will end,
but we also employ what we know about the expectations for certain genres to
assure ourselves about some basics (that is, most children's books will have
happy endings; a classic Russian novel probably will not!). Rowling has already
destabilized some of our expectations by crossing genres ’ from fantasy to
British public school novel to mystery/suspense to young adult ’ but I suggest
that she has also made it more difficult to predict the plot by deliberately
offering clues and red herrings in interviews and on her web site. I believe
that this unprecedented interaction between author and fans while a story is
still unfolding enriches our reading in expected ways. Let me try to show you
how by applying this reasoning to a few unraveled plot points.

In
other words, if I believe there is even the smallest chance that this book will
not play out according to what my previous experience of similar novels tells
me should happen, then I will read it with far greater emotional investment
than I would have otherwise, and the intensity of suspense will remain high
throughout the book.

The
same is true if we look at the question of Snape's loyalty. When I pick up the
seventh volume, I will do so knowing that I'm an experienced reader. I will
know perfectly well that this character cannot be made to seem evil and then
ultimately be proven to be so much more complex than that in every single
volume only to be tossed off as the worst kind of pure-evil bad guy in the
final scene. No. I know perfectly well that all signs point to Dumbledore
foreseeing his own death and arranging it with Snape to ensure Harry's safety
and Snape's vital position as spy for the Order of the Phoenix. I know that
Snape, slimy though he may be, is also a complex personality, full of
contradictory needs and misunderstood virtues. I know that hints have been
dropped that he may have cared for Lily ’ and that yes, he, unlike Voldemort,
has known love, and can love. I know that the power of the word "coward" is
essential to understanding Snape's character, that Harry's blind resentment of
Snape is simplistic and misguided, and therefore part of Harry's becoming an
adult will require that he learns to see Snape for something far from evil (if
also far from wise or pure).

However.

Rowling
has planted a seed ¦ a seed planted when she was so dismissive in the
Melissa-Emerson interview of Snape being a double-quadruple agent6¦ that prevents me and
every other fan who read that interview from being cynical when we read book
seven. I know that I, at least, won't quite be able to relax and wait for
Snape's redemption. When what must happen finally happens, I certainly won't be
able to casually tell myself and my friends, "Oh, I saw that coming miles
away!" Instead, when it does happen, it will be at the climax of a
roller-coaster ride in which I will have thrown myself thoroughly into the
world in which Snape might be just plain bad ("Die, you murderer, die!!"), and
then thrown myself just as wildly in the other direction ("Harry! Don't sink to
their level! Don't see only what it's convenient to see! Reach out to him,
Harry!"), until finally I reach the safe shores of exactly the right ending of
the storyline, and I bathe myself in sweet relief and the balm of true clarity.

Because,
you see, there's something more at stake here than just suspense. Sure, we want
to be unsure until the very final moments. We want to spend hours and days and
weeks after we finish the last book reviewing it all to make all the
connections that weave this enormous seven-volume story into such a tight
fabric. That's a large part of the pleasure of reading a story like this. But
that's not all there is to this story. What I love most about Harry Potter is
the emotional and psychological depth and truth that J.K. Rowling brings to her
characters. Just when I think I've got one of them pinned as a type ¦ he or she
blossoms into someone I'm unsure of, intrigued by, and inextricably attracted
to. I know, after six books, that I can trust Rowling to never take the easy way
out, and to give me people who, for all their magical qualities, are
recognizable as myself and all the real people I know and love (or, like
Dolores Umbridge, love to hate).

Rowling
accomplishes this the way all the best writers accomplish the same magic trick:
with insight, sensitivity, close observation, and ruthlessly honest writing.
But I believe that, somehow, without anyone expecting it, this level of the
books has been heightened over the years by the fandom and Rowling between
them. Here's an example: Before Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was
released, Rowling publicly hinted that a major character would die. Speculation
was, of course, rampant and soul-wrenching among millions of fans around the
world. As we read Goblet of Fire ’ even though we knew it was impossible
for her to kill off Harry, or any other truly "major" character that early in
the series ’ we worried. As danger circled ever closer to Harry during the
Triwizard Tournament, we worried. Not coincidentally, the people closest to
Harry seemed to be put in direct danger, also, in the second task. So, when Ron
and Hermione got their reprieve after the second task, and while readers
everywhere chanted to ourselves, "Even Rowling wouldn't kill off Harry,"
we still worried ¦ we worried about Dumbledore, about Neville, about Ginny and
Fred and George. And then it turned out to be Cedric. If someone had asked you
before Goblet of Fire was released whether Cedric Diggory was "a major
character" wouldn't you probably have said, "Cedric? He's ¦ some Hufflepuff or
something, isn't he?" And yet, how many of us choked up when Cedric died? And I
think the reason Cedric's death mattered to us was that our fear for the lives
of other, more familiar characters had made us so engaged in the story, so
absorbed in the danger that threatened these students, that when Cedric died,
his closeness to the other students, to the ones we had worked ourselves up to
feel so much for, was enough to make us feel his loss as a real loss, as more
than the necessary writerly contrivance that it also was. I believe that if we
had all gone into reading Goblet of Fire expecting that no one
"important" would be killed off in this series (except maybe the old,
gray-bearded wizard; this is fantasy fiction, after all), I think we would have
greeted Cedric's death more callously. We would have thought, "Wow, that's a
neat trick ’ if Voldy will kill off a kid, he's really scary. Yeah. Good to
know he'll only kill off the kind of characters who get introduced one book
earlier just for the purpose of later getting killed off, though. Phew." And
then, maybe, we would have been a little impatient with Harry and with Cho for
being so maudlin about it all in the next book. Instead, we identified
ourselves very closely with the students at Hogwarts, and we felt the fear and
intrusion caused by losing one of our own. We recognized Harry's (and Cho's)
moodiness and adolescent brattiness as just the same kind of confused, indirect
way of expressing pain and fear that we have felt or are feeling at that age.

I'll
also offer a counter-example that ˜proves the rule' that Rowling's interaction
with her fandom outside the books, through interviews and her web site, help to
involve us still more deeply in her work. In her famous interview with Melissa
Anelli and Emerson Spartz, Rowling was characteristically coy on many points,
as already noted above.7 But on one point she was careful to make herself
abundantly clear: Hermione and Ron will be a couple in the next book8 (while Harry and
Ginny, as we know, already made their serious romantic interest in each other
clear in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). The possible romantic
relationships among the main characters have long been a topic of vociferous
speculation among fans, as Rowling was well aware. Thus, as she has done on
many other, smaller issues, she stated the facts on record, deliberately to put
an end to particular lines of speculation. As I have already noted, Rowling has
said that she quashes some rumors or theories when they "are plain
unprofitable." 9 Now, in light of my theory on the effects of encouraging
speculation along certain lines, we can elaborate on how other types of
theorizing can actually hinder the enjoyment of the books. It's really very
simple: if we search for clues to a relationship that Rowling knows will not
come to fruition in any of the seven books, we will be turning our attention
away from the story that she is writing and toward another story, which
is not hers. This relative inattention will keep us from being fully involved
in the story as it is actually enfolding, and will alienate us from the
characters' real development. In short, it keeps us from enjoying the books as
fully as we might. The nature of a story ’ and the nature of the allure stories
have always had for people ’ requires that you temporarily give yourself to it.
That you suspend your disbelief (in magic or in the existence of a real "boy
who lived" named Harry), and that you let the author take you for a ride. We
trust that the author will provide a ride that is worthy of us; it must ring
true, it must bring us somewhere new, and it must speak to truths we recognize,
no matter how unreal the setting. In turn, the author trusts us to stay on the
ride until its end ’ not to wander off on a path of our own halfway through
(though if we stay on the ride and find it unsatisfactory, of course, we can
always write a different one of our own; many great authors are born this way).
The Harry Potter series has presented a situation that most of today's readers
are unfamiliar with, in that the ride has continued now for many years.
Rowling, when she tells us that some paths are dead ends, is asking us to trust
her at least until we've seen where she plans to lead us.

The
result, it seems to me, of Rowling's frequent and deliberate communications
with her readers while her story is still unfolding is that Rowling has found ’
perhaps inadvertently ’ a way of moving beyond the genre of young adult fiction
or coming-of-age stories, with their conventions and rules on who can die and
who cannot and on what we know to expect, to write honest, complex,
psychologically rich literature for people of all ages. Furthermore, a
situation has evolved in which the dedicated fan, who reads interviews with the
author, visits her web site, and dissects every clue, is able, thanks to
Rowling's thoughtful, generous, and careful management of this game, to enjoy a
richer and more involving experience of the series than the casual reader who
will swallow them whole a few years from now, when the entire series is
available for the taking at any time and Rowling's hints are no longer a
front-page news item.

So
we're very lucky, right now, to be a part of this unique experience. But you
know what else this means, don't you? It means that no amount of time spent in
the Leaky Lounge will allow us to be certain ¦ completely certain ¦ that Harry
will survive book seven.